Inside The Bills

Through the first four games of the season the Bills vaunted pass rush has been rendered ineffective due mainly to opposing quarterback getting the ball out in less than 2.5 seconds on average. Andrew Luck, Tom Brady, Ryan Tannehill and Eli Manning have all succeeded with a quick pass game to negate any pass pressure generated by Buffalo’s men up front. Defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman has a solution to reverse that trend.

“It’s one of those situations where if the ball is coming out in under two seconds it’s a little hard to get the type of pass rush that you want to generate,” said Thurman. “At the same time everybody has a job to do and quarterbacks have been throwing the ball fairly quickly against us and we know it. So we gotta do a better job of our underneath coverage.”

Coverage on the boundary was very good against the quick game last week. Evidence of that could be seen in the receiving statistics of Odell Beckham Jr. and Rueben Randle. The pair was targeted 18 times in the game and had just six receptions. The middle of the field is what has to be guarded more effectively, especially knowing that Titans TE Delanie Walker is one of Marcus Mariota’s favorite targets.

The folks at ProFootballFocus watch and grade every play of the season, and for the Bills the player they have at the top of their pass rushing efficiency chart might not be who you think it is.

It’s Jerry Hughes, who doesn’t play quite as many snaps as Mario Williams or Kyle Williams or Marcell Dareus, but has been every bit as effective against the pass. Hughes has six sacks, four QB hits and 29 QB pressures. As we covered in a feature story on Hughes last week, he often creates pressure opportunities for his teammates with the way he flushes quarterbacks from the pocket.

Here’s how the folks at PFF rank the club’s top pass rushers through 11 games.

Bills defensive coordinator Dave Wannstedt is just as optimistic as any Bills fan about the kind of pass rush his front four is going to be able to generate this coming season, especially knowing he’s got a second wave of defensive linemen that would start on some other NFL clubs. All that being said, Wannstedt cautions that predicting just how many sacks the Bills can log can be tough.

In an exclusive one-on-one interview with Buffalobills.com Wannstedt touched on a number of topics concerning his defense including just how effective the unit could be in taking down opposing quarterbacks.

“A lot goes into getting sacks,” he said. “I’ve been involved with college teams and pro teams that have led the nation and led the league in sacks. A lot has to do with the situation that you’re in. Are you playing from behind? Are you playing from ahead? A lot of it has to with the guys rushing the passer. A lot has to do with quarterbacks you might face or offensive linemen during the year. We’re going to get our share.”

The league average last season was just over 40 sacks (40.25). Buffalo should easily exceed that total as a team in 2012.

CB Aaron Williams and the rest of the secondary were not the beneficiaries of consistent pass pressure last season. That figures to change this coming season, which should make life a bit easier for Buffalo’s cover men on the back end.

“One of things that (Secondary coach) George (Catavolos) told me about as long as you’re in leverage you’ll make plays,” said Williams. “It’s not about always jamming the guy on the line of scrimmage or being in the right speed. It’s all about leverage because you know at the end of the day Mario (Williams), Mark (Anderson), Marcell (Dareus) and Kyle (Williams) and all those guys are going to go after the quarterback and the quarterback’s going to have maybe less than two seconds to get the ball out so it’s going to benefit all of us DB’s.”